Sports Festival

Last Thursday, our school held their 49th 体育祭 (たいいくさい) - Sports Day/Festival. The conditions were perfect, except for the huge gusts that swept through often. They were strong enough for the executive decision to take down every class marquee, their only source of shelter.

This would be a good time to explain about the track surface as well. One of the first "shocks" for any newcomer to a Japanese school (or, in this case a public athletics track), is the lack of grass. The surface of the sports ground at 99% of schools is dirt. This means that the baseball team, soccer team, rugby teams (if they have one) would all train on dirt. I'm sure whoever washes their clothes wouldn't be too happy. I have asked countless people about why this is so, and have been told each and every time that it comes back to money. They do not usually hire any (or many) groundspeople or janitors at schools to cut down on costs. That is one of the reasons for getting the students to clean their designated areas based on a roster. Another reason for dirt, I have been told, is that it is an all-season surface. It will not be affected badly by wintery frosts and will dry a lot quicker in wet weather. This will minimize disruptions to any training schedules etc., and allow the athletes to maintain their routines (6 or 7 days a week until 8pm). Hmm... as a former coach I... (I'll refrain). I will just leave it at "they are not professional athletes".

Anyway, the day was a lot of fun for everyone. It was not so much about which individuals were the best at something, rather which class worked the best as a team. Each class had their own shirt, with the design created by the students. It is a massive business here. Within the first few weeks of the school year, we had representatives of print shops or clothing shops asking to speak to the "right" people. Each class had to decide on their own shirt to wear at these major events. I am pretty sure that each class was assigned a colour (not entirely sure on that), but the students could create whatever design they wanted. To give a few examples, one class took the conservative approach of having the Ralph Lauren polo design, with their own classroom roll number and initials on the back and front. Another class played with the Coca-cola brand, changing it to Caco-cola for the front, then the contents table and ingredients changed to form various jokes. A lot of classes had just the simple classroom roll number and their nickname on the back (e.g. 32 Sugi), with their class (e.g. 3A) on the front. I think the best was the "icon" shirt that played around with icons from Apple apps.

The most interesting part for me was the range of events. There was the usual "tug of war", sprints and relays. However, there were other things like the Sweden Relay (50, 100, 200, then 400m relay); the Raw Hide (one student carried by three others and swinging a taped softball around to try and hit a metal tin at the other end of the field); the team obstacle course (pogo sticks, nets, and sack races); the "Ferryman's Crossing", which I included the video of below; and the students versus staff relays.

I was included in the relay of course, but I only had a 50m sprint leg. When I started running, there was a lot of laughter and I distinctly heard a few "yabai" from the crowd, which in young people's talk kind of translates to "oh... no way". I found out the next day that many people were remarking on how fast I was (for my age) and how long my legs were. They had never seen any strides like that before... hahaha.

The only downside to the day was due to my own stupidity. I got ridiculously sunburnt.